4 ms·

I run a small business in India, and it horrifies me as to how badly call center employees are treated. I use contractors all the time and I just set the goals

I run a small business in India, and it horrifies me as to how badly call center employees are treated. I use contractors all the time and I just set the goals and measure outcomes at intervals of a week. I’ve never found micromanaging a poor performer to improve performance and it definitely pisses off high performers. If your employee is not performing and doesn’t improve with coaching, then just move on and find someone else. Don’t make your employee miserable with this sort of surveillance.

geocrasher 6y ago
I could not agree more! If you can't trust an employee to do a good job, then why are they employed?
- mrweasel 6y ago
  Often they aren't, they are employed by the lowest biding subcontractor you could find. Perhaps because when they implement stuff like this and it surfaces in newspapers you can just fire that company or claim that you "had no idea that people where forced to work under such degrading conditions and the subcontract will receive a stern talking-to. The business logic behind the current call centre model is extremely flawed, it basically boils down to: We really don't want people to call, but sometimes they have to, how do we make that call as cheap as possible. Business seem completely blind to the fact that when customers call, then it's because something has gone wrong. This is when you need competent and happy people answering the phone. Instead that call is seen as a stand-alone expense, which needs to be kept as low as possible. In reality the call centre costs should be minimised by fixing the reason for the call. Thing to keep call costs down by hiring increasingly cheaper labour and trying to keep employees in check by implementing immoral business practises just results in increasingly unhappy customers.
- underwater 6y ago
  It seems this kind of approach is popular in fields where no one actually wants to do the job. Being a telemarketer sounds is a shit job 99% of the time. The only company I know of who claims to use the trust and motivate approach to this kind of job is Zappos.

geocrasher 6y ago

I could not agree more! If you can't trust an employee to do a good job, then why are they employed?

mrweasel 6y ago
Often they aren't, they are employed by the lowest biding subcontractor you could find. Perhaps because when they implement stuff like this and it surfaces in newspapers you can just fire that company or claim that you "had no idea that people where forced to work under such degrading conditions and the subcontract will receive a stern talking-to. The business logic behind the current call centre model is extremely flawed, it basically boils down to: We really don't want people to call, but sometimes they have to, how do we make that call as cheap as possible. Business seem completely blind to the fact that when customers call, then it's because something has gone wrong. This is when you need competent and happy people answering the phone. Instead that call is seen as a stand-alone expense, which needs to be kept as low as possible. In reality the call centre costs should be minimised by fixing the reason for the call. Thing to keep call costs down by hiring increasingly cheaper labour and trying to keep employees in check by implementing immoral business practises just results in increasingly unhappy customers.
underwater 6y ago
It seems this kind of approach is popular in fields where no one actually wants to do the job. Being a telemarketer sounds is a shit job 99% of the time. The only company I know of who claims to use the trust and motivate approach to this kind of job is Zappos.